Cr Price noted an interest in the Foreshore site, and
directed his comments to the Westshore site only.

The Chair invited Cr Hague, Chair of the Freedom Camping
Working Group, to speak to the item. Cr Hague provided an overview of the
process undertaken and noted that the recommendations brought to Council
today are supported by the majority of the Group but consensus was not
reached; an indication of the complexity of the matter at hand. The officers
involved were thanked for the support they had provided to the Working
Group.

In response to questions from Councillors, it was
clarified that:

·The numbers of
freedom campers in the area were calculated form observations across the city
and not just allocated sites.

·If the
recommendations are not passed into resolution by Council the status quo is
maintained, including the current number of berths at each site.

Councillors made the following points in their discussion
on the item:

·The current Bylaw
has not been in place long enough to have been tested fully; the proposed
changes provide the opportunity to assess a peak season with reduced sites,
following which the success or otherwise of the approach can be reviewed.

·Freedom Camping is
under discussion not just in Napier but at a national level and it is yet to be
seen what legislative changes may be made in this space.

·Napier is
relatively small in size and there are only so many options where the approximately
6,600 campers per 3 months can be directed. It is expected that numbers of
campers will only grow.

·The different
sites were looked at from a ‘footprint’ perspective; hence, the
non-self-contained camper site has more berths as overall the size of the
vehicles tends to be much smaller.

·Having created the
Working Group and tasked them with making considered recommendations, Council
would be best to then listen to the recommendations made.

Concerns expressed were primarily centred around a need
to protect local ratepayers, rather than prioritising campers. There were no
complaints about camp grounds that did not have residents overlooking them.
Trepidation was also expressed that bad behaviours will continue around
Westshore and that reducing the number of berths will only create expensive
and challenging monitoring requirements.

To
present the territorial authority report on dog control policies and practices
for the dog control registration year 1 July 2016 – 30 June 2017, for
adoption by Council as required under Section 10A of the Dog Control Act 1996,
prior to being submitted to the Secretary for Local Government and being made
publically available.

·With regards to
the nature of complaints “worrying stock” referred to incidents
where dogs were worrying stock and “other stock” referred to incidents
involving stock other than dogs, for example where an animal had been found
on the road.

·The wording in the
report draws directly from terms used when someone reported an incident, so
it may have been reported as a “dog attack” when investigation
sometimes found that this was not necessarily the case. Reporting will be
refined to address this in future.

·Officers are very
proud of the increased number of dogs rehomed this year.

·Councils are not
required to report on all the areas we cover in our report. However, other
Councils’ statistics will be available over the next couple of months
allowing for a comparison in areas such as numbers euthanised.

·While education
continues to be important, the statistics demonstrate that a regulatory
presence is still required in relation to dogs.

In response to questions from Councillors, it was advised
that the response from Police had been mixed to noise complaints; they attend
when they can, but there had been a reduction in seizures over the last two
quarters. It was noted that the public need to be able to rely on Police to
respond promptly.

More formal detail will be provided in future reports on
commercial and residential consents.